


Plus One

by nightbloomingcereus



Series: Dreaming Spires (the Oxford-verse) [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Professors, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-02-01 07:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21439105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightbloomingcereus/pseuds/nightbloomingcereus
Summary: Adam has something shocking to tell Crowley.(A fluffy little one-shot set in the "Part of the Whole Design" Universe.)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Warlock Dowling/Adam Young
Series: Dreaming Spires (the Oxford-verse) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1480379
Comments: 8
Kudos: 136





	Plus One

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place several months after the epilogue of "Part of the Whole Design."

"I need to tell you something," Adam says, looking nervous, over afternoon tea in Crowley's office.

Crowley gets up and shuts the door gently, coming back to sit on the couch next to Adam.

"Is everything OK?"

"Oh, yeah, everything's great. It's … good news. I hope. Maybe even great."

"Well, then, spill."

"Well, um, you remember that guy that everyone thought was me? I mean, that everyone thought was Lucifer's son before the Morningstars found out about me?" 

(Crowley has always appreciated that Adam never refers to Lucifer and Bee and all the rest as "your family" or "our family" when he talks about them; it's a luxury Crowley himself has never had, and he finds it rather touching that Adam includes him in this continued, quiet act of refusal.)

"Yeah, he had a funny name. Wizard, or something."

"Warlock. Warlock Dowling. Well, I, um, I kind of looked him up on the Internet… I was curious, I guess."

"Adam Young!" says Crowley, affecting a stern voice, "did you stalk that poor boy online!?!?

"Well, Wensley helped!" retorts Adam defensively. "Anyway, all we did was find his Twitter, and his Instagram, and then his email…"

Huh. Ordinarily Adam would have taken Crowley's mock-affronted tone in the spirit in which it was meant, and lobbed back a sarcastic reply or two. He realizes, just a beat too late, that whatever Adam's about to tell him is big, that he's actually worried Crowley might not approve. He takes off his sunglasses and winks at Adam, who relaxes a bit. He decides that he might as well leave the sunglasses off for the rest of this conversation. It's just the two of them, after all.

"…and we started talking online -"

Crowley cuts him off. "Did you tell him who you are? With respect to the Lucifer thing, I mean?" 

He's aware that he sounds overly protective, but he can't help himself. Adam's technically his cousin, although both of them try their best to avoid acknowledging their Morningstar heritage, but, more than that, he's become some cross between a godson and a friend to Crowley in the year and several months since they first met. 

"Yeah."

"Is that wise? What if he tells someone? Goes to the press?"

"He won't. Trust me."

Crowley doesn't ask how Adam can be so sure; Adam's always had a preternatural confidence and certainty about the things he says and does, the kind that most people develop only much later in life, if at all. Besides, on a more concrete level, Adam had pretty much completely humiliated Lucifer that autumn evening more than a year ago in the parking lot _and _has the video footage to back it up. As a result, it's a pretty good bet that if this Warlock guy were to go to the press, the Morningstars would have the news covered up before you could say "tickety-boo". (Even his relatives can occasionally do a good thing, even if it's really just incidental to their own self-interest.)

"All right. If you're sure."

"Anyway, that's not why I wanted to tell you. We started talking online, like I said. I think he was a little weirded out at first, to be honest. Like, here's this random stranger who actually _is_ the person that everyone thought _he _was; that's pretty screwed up, I know. But he was so easy to talk to, and so interesting, and we started texting all the time … and we've been meeting up, in person, the last few months."  
  
"I thought he'd left the country, after all that business with Lucifer and the dog when he was eleven. Thought his parents shipped him off to boarding school back in the States."

"Yeah. Phillips Exeter. He hated it, missed his friends here. But he's back in the UK now for uni, in London. He's at UCL, studying literature." 

"Aziraphale will be happy to hear that," mumbles Crowley, a little dazed. He's still trying to process this flood of new information, to be perfectly honest, when Adam drops the bombshell.

"Anyway… what I wanted to tell you was, he's my Plus One. For your wedding."

"Ngk?" 

He _had _wondered, as had Aziraphale, when they'd gotten Adam's RSVP card back in the mail with the "Plus One" box checked off. Ordinarily, he'd have just assumed that it would have been Brian, or Wensleydale, or Pepper, but all three of them had gotten their own personal invitations, so the question of Adam's Plus One has remained a mystery. He and Aziraphale have even had a bit of fun speculating about just who Adam's guest might be. Neither of them, it seems, has come even the slightest bit close to the truth.

It takes a lot to shock Crowley at this point in his life, what with his soap-opera-worthy family and his Hollywood-worthy love story with Aziraphale. And yet, he's currently stunned into wide-eyed incoherence, something that generally only happens these days when Aziraphale does something devastatingly sweet (which, all right, is still pretty often, but this is the first occasion in a long time where he's been rendered speechless by something that is actually shocking). 

"Warlock and I … we're together. Dating. Boyfriends. Didn't want you to be surprised on the day of. Didn't seem right not to tell you, somehow." 

"Wow," he manages, "I don't know what I was expecting but it was definitely not that."

"It's a lot. I know. Take your time."

Eventually Crowley asks, "So you really like him, then?"

"I do. He's fantastic. A bit messed up, maybe, but aren't we all?" Adam's smile is guileless and wide and beautiful, and Crowley instinctively recognizes it. It's the same sappy, unselfconscious, true smile that he gets when he talks about Aziraphale.

Aren't we all a little bit messed up, indeed. Only Adam, he thinks, fondly and with admiration, would take the most fucked-up thing that's ever happened to him in his life and somehow manage to leverage it into a _boyfriend._ Suddenly, he really, _really _wants to meet this Warlock kid. If he's enough to draw Adam's attention and keep it, then he's got to be someone truly extraordinary. 

Adam's still talking, rambling even. Crowley recognizes this too; sometimes he can't bring himself to shut up about Aziraphale either. In fact, he's developed a bit of a reputation for it among the people in his lab and the students in his lectures: it's always, "Aziraphale" this and "my fiancé" that. (He can't wait for the day that he gets to start waxing rhapsodic about "my husband" all the time.)

"… I've been going down to London on the weekends, or he's been coming here. 'S why I haven't been able to do Sunday brunch lately, sorry. And I took him back to Tadfield a couple of weeks ago to meet Mum and Dad. He's scared of dogs, you know that? Especially the big ones. He says Dog's all right, though, although I don't think he _likes _Dog, exactly. We're working on it."

"Well, nobody can be perfect," says Crowley with a genuine smile, "I'm glad you're happy, kid."

"Now that he's met Mum and Dad, I want him to meet you too. And Aziraphale. If… if that's okay with you two, of course."

"Tell you what. Next time he's in town, bring him by our place for dinner. We've been meaning to have you over anyway. You haven't seen the new place yet, and I'm sure Aziraphale would be delighted to meet him." 

* * *

Aziraphale, when he tells him the news that evening as they're relaxing with cups of cocoa by the fireplace in the sitting room of the little house they've just bought together, does not respond quite how Crowley had expected, with widened eyes or dropped jaw. Instead, he bursts into peals of helpless laughter.

When, several minutes later, he finally manages to collect himself enough to speak, he says, "My dear, have you ever stopped to consider how _absolutely absurd _our lives are? Really, I should write a novel about it or something."

And that sets Crowley to laughing too, which triggers Aziraphale's hysterical laughter all over again, until they're both falling over on the sofa, clinging to each other as tears of mirth stream down their faces.

If you put it like that, thinks Crowley, it really, really is absolutely absurd. This life of theirs is completely and utterly ridiculous, and he wouldn't change a single damn thing about it.


End file.
